20 years on, and Brookside is still fondly remembered by fans – so the announcement that every episode of the soap, controversially canned by Channel 4, will be available to watch has sent waves of excitement.
Since the news that STV Player – available across the UK – will be dropping five episodes a week from the very first episode, fans have been eagerly anticipating reliving the nostalgia of a show which put gritty, kitchen sink drama on the map.
It’s no surprise to actor Dean Sullivan, best known as the iconic criminal, drug addict, rogue and somehow pillar of the community Jimmy Corkhill, who told Metro.co.uk when we sat down for a chat that he still gets stopped every single day by fans.
‘Constantly. Every day of my life,’ he said to us as we got into Brookside reflection mode, one of my favourite places to be.
‘Whenever I go out into the public, every day of my life somebody wants an autograph or a photograph or they want to speak, they want to engage. They’re always very complimentary to me, they always say we loved Jimmy.
‘And they’re as baffled as anybody, a lot of people are asking those questions as to why did it finish. It was one of the best programmes on TV, one of the best soaps ever.’
It’s hard to disagree; the show was groundbreaking from the word go, being the first soap to air a pre-watershed lesbian kiss and tackling lesser discussed issues including rape, mental health, domestic abuse and drugs.
‘The way it was filmed added to it as well,’ Dean explained. ‘We didn’t have any studios, it was all done in real houses.
‘The camera people used natural light, not studio lights or anything like that. It gave a certain coldness to it, it gave it an edge that people hadn’t really seen on TV before.
‘That added to the realism of it as well as the storylines and the acting.’
Brookside set the precedent for many programmes to follow, including titan of the BBC, EastEnders.
Not only that, but it launched the careers of notable actors including Anna Friel, Ricky Tomlinson and Sue Johnson.
Many other stars – Michael Starke, Alex Fletcher, Louis Emerick, Gillian Kearney and Sunetra Sarker – are regular faces across the world of TV soap and drama.
And while ratings for the show did decline, it remained a popular show to the end – when viewers could find it in the schedules – so there was much dismay when Channel 4 pulled the plug 21 years on from its first episode.
Dean explained that the rumour mill had been going for 12 months – from around the time the show had a dramatic re-boot for an action packed 20th anniversary – that the axe may be about to fall.
But, like many, he still doesn’t know to this day why the show was taken off air.
‘Even though we knew it was coming, or had the sense it was coming, it was a terrible shock, he recalled.
‘Not just for the actors but for everybody who worked on it. They were all out of a job, really – it was such a big part of people’s lives, when something like that comes to an end it’s upsetting.’
During that final year, the impression to many fans was that Channel 4 was perhaps trying to find an excuse to justify axing the show.
With ratings still holding up in comparison to other shows, they only seriously plummeted when episodes were shifted dramatically across the schedules, sometimes with 90 minute editions airing into the early hours.
‘I can remember in the final months my mum, who always used to watch it, would ring me and say “When are you on?” and I found out it was on later at night,’ Dean said.
‘The channel was shifting it around for whatever the reasons for doing so, so I wasn’t surprised when the press started saying that the viewing figures had dropped.
‘They would drop if you were a viewer or a fan and you didn’t know what time it was on. How could you watch it? That’s what happened in the day and you just have to cope with that.
‘People have those habits but once the habits are broken by the channel or broadcaster, people start asking questions – when’s it on? When can I watch it?
‘When those routines are broken some people probably got fed up and couldn’t be bothered looking for it.’
The question has remained ever since the show ended – could Brookie ever come back?
Campaigns have been constant; many led by superfan Lee Brady – and when select episodes were also placed on Britbox, there was much jubilation.
Years ago, the clear passion for the show led to the release of a DVD box-set – so now STV Player’s step further of releasing every single episode is a massive step forward.
Despite the Close being sold off, and the final storyline seeing all characters move away in different directions, Dean sees no reason why it can’t be revisited in some capacity.
‘I think it could work even more so these days because one of the big initial storylines, the Grants were a true working-class family.
That was one of the remits, as it were, from Channel 4 that the programme had to be relevant and touch on people’s lives. Back then in the 80s it was the Thatcher years with the miners’ strikes and the unions and whether the unions had any power.
‘You only need to turn on the news today and there’s strikes and the union bosses are talking about the talks or lack of talks with the government. It’s just as relevant as what we were doing in the 80s back when it first started.
‘Brookside dealt with the issues that people could identify with when it was first broadcast in 1982 and it’s extraordinary, here we are all these years later and it’s exactly what Brookside was doing right at the beginning. So not much has changed, really.
‘I think there would be a massive appetite for it. If it does come back, who knows?’
He continued: ‘But the thing is what’s great about it, because it’s going to be repeated now on STV Player, there’ll be a whole new generation of fans who will get an appetite for it and maybe start demanding that it does come back. Never say never.’
Recently, Waterloo Road made a surprise comeback to the BBC after swarms of viewers flocked to the box-sets of the older episodes during lockdown.
Could the same happen for Brookside? If so, Dean knows how he would like it to happen.
‘It would be great to revisit and see what Jimmy’s up to now and the likes of Sinbad and Mick Johnson. All the iconic characters the fans really loved – what are they doing now?’ the actor mused.
‘As far as the last storyline was concerned all of the families in each of the houses moved away because the houses were being bought up to build an incinerator plant.
‘So as far as realism is concerned Brookside Close wouldn’t be there, but the characters would still be around. Where are they now? Did they keep in touch with each other? What are they doing?
‘I think the fans would love that. I’ve had a few ideas myself of what Jimmy would be up to! He’d be up to his old tricks!’
STV Player will launch the first five of Brookside’s re-runs to stream on Wednesday February 1. Five further episodes will be put up each week.
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